


Sanctuary

by blackcoffeeandteardrops



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s11e05 Ghouli, F/M, In which Dana Scully has feelings about her kid, Maybe - Freeform, Season/Series 11 Speculation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 18:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13507017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackcoffeeandteardrops/pseuds/blackcoffeeandteardrops
Summary: Based off rumors/speculation surround s11e5:Ghouli. Scully has a conversation with William that is long overdue.





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever have a plot bunny that works it's way into your brain and won't let you pay attention to much else until you've worked on it? This is that plot bunny for me. I don't know how close to the actual episode this will be, but here's hoping Scully (and Mulder) get some time to actually see and talk to their son. They deserve it. We all do. Thanks for reading!

When Scully opened her eyes she tried taking a deep breath, only to be met with a feeling akin to a slab of cement pressing down on her chest. She blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the dim lighting and get a sense of her bearings. She wiggled her limbs, wincing a little, and only as she turned her head to the side did she realize she was lying in bed, with no recollection of how she’d gotten there. The door opened softly, and she lifted her head from the pillow to see Mulder walking in, concern mixed with relief on his face. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, perching himself on her side of the bed. He cupped her cheek with his palm before pressing it to her forehead, and finally settling it atop hers on the blanket. “You had us worried.”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by--” she stopped, gasping as slowly reality dawned upon her. Images flashed--the hospital, a gun, searing pain, hospital lights, and finally a sense of peace and warmth--and she stared at him in confusion. “Mulder, I was shot. Several times.”

“Yes,” he replied, nodding almost imperceptibly. “What else do you remember?”

Scully closed her eyes for a moment, holding tightly to his hand. She remembered voices, remembered opening her mouth to pose a question, only to feel unconsciousness claim her once more. She remembered Mulder, remembered William, and it was that fact that made her sit up in bed no matter how much her body screamed in protest. “Where is he? Did he get hurt? I have to--”

“Easy, easy, Scully. He’s okay. And you’re okay, too, thanks to him,” Mulder said, holding onto her with one arm and gesturing to the small patch of gauze peeking out from her shirt. “It’d be a lot worse if he wasn’t there. Although, considering how badly he was hurt, too, I don’t understand how any of this is possible.”

They’d only been around him for a short time, had only dipped their toe into the proverbial pool of knowledge regarding his life, where he’d been, and what he’d been up to. William told her he could do things no one else could. Without question, she believed him, but not once did she think he’d use his abilities on her. “I saw him in a body bag, Mulder. I touched him--” she stopped, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Her breathing grew rapid, and she willed herself to stay calm. Not just for herself, but for her son. “You’re telling me he’s alive. Mulder, how is that possible? He can’t be,” she insisted, no matter how much she wanted it to be true.

Mulder shook his head, for once at a loss for words. His heart ached for her, for he understood the exact position she was in. The shock at finding their son bleeding out on the floor of his home was compounded even further by confronting the sight of him in a body bag. But he’d barely had a chance to adjust, to try and get both he and Scully to face this gray reality that faced them before a gunman barged into the hospital, opening fire. The memory of Scully falling to the ground in a flurry of bullets wasn’t something he’d soon forget. Nor was the sight of William barreling through the hall, yelling at the sight of her on the floor before them. “I don’t think the answer to your question is that simple, Scully. But he’s alive, and you’re alive because of him.”

“William did this?” Scully asked, blinking to clear the tears that clouded her vision. Her fingertips graced a piece of the gauze taped to her chest while she stared at him in disbelief. “I was bleeding out on the floor, Mulder. How could this happen?”

Mulder darted his tongue out to moisten his parched lips. Truthfully, he was tired, but there was no way he could sleep, not now. He’d been the one to usher them both into the car, intent on driving them to the safest place he could think of. It was clear that waiting at the hospital to have the bullets removed would’ve been dangerous, judging by her nearly dying the last time she was hospitalized. Someone--or several someones, he surmised--were clearly bent on bringing them to an end, and for whatever reason it involved her having to die, along with William at her side. His head spun, his hands and feet growing numb when he thought of the possibilities, but he knew he had to stay strong. 

The house wasn’t entirely secure, but neither was the hospital, or the FBI building for that matter. He’d intended on reaching out through trusted channels and finding a place to have her stitched up, along with having William checked out, just to be safe. Mulder had heard him moving around in the back seat, biting his tongue when William removed his seatbelt, and nearly crashed the car once he realized what their son was doing. “I know this sounds strange, Scully. I know. But he...felt it. It was as if he could sense where the bullets were lodged, and was able to get them out and stop the bleeding. You still got hit, but when I was putting the bandages on, it just looks like the bullets grazed you. A few flesh wounds at best.”

Scully shook her head. Despite the evidence, it all seemed so unthinkable. She’d been back in his life for all of a few days, and already William was risking his life and doing things to save her. This was after he’d been shot himself and died--her heart rate kicked up a few notches at the memory of seeing his pallid face peeking out from the body bag in the morgue. “Where is he, Mulder?” she asked, her voice wavering as she suppressed a sob. “I have to see him.”

Mulder cocked his head in the direction of the door. “He’s sleeping across the hall. Saving you...it took a lot out of him, Scully. But he’s going to be okay.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I need to see him. And before you try telling me I need to rest, I know I do, but I have--”

“I know you do,” Mulder replied, holding his arm out towards her. “Come on, I’ll walk you there.”

“I’m not an invalid. I know where our guest room is,” she said, but accepting his arm for fear he’d try and fight her if she didn’t. She winced upon standing and took a few seconds to catch her breath, shutting her eyes as an image of William hovering over her in the car fluttered through her mind. “How did he do this? I should be in a hospital right now. He should be--”

“That might be true, Scully, but right now the hospital is not the safest place for either of you. You ready?” he asked, waiting until she was to lead her to the room where William was sound asleep.

Scully hovered in the doorway, debating how best to approach William’s sleeping form. She stepped forward into the room, clinging tightly to the back of a chair Mulder must have brought in from downstairs for support. The short walk from their room left her feeling weak from the effort, so she slowly sat down, keeping her eyes glued on William the entire time. His eyes fluttered behind closed lids, his mouth hanging open just slightly, and as she shifted her gaze downward, she watched in amazement at the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was really here and breathing, in spite of the images now seared into her brain. Her eyes shifted to his temple and she nearly gasped when all that remained of his wound was the slightest hint of a scar, a ghost of what mere hours before had been there. “How is this real?”

In the bed, William stirred, furrowing his brow as he turned his head towards her, but his eyes remained shut. She wondered if he truly was well after everything, if he was in any pain. She tentatively reached her fingertips out, desperate to verify through touch that all of this was real, pulling back only when she saw him slowly wake up, looking back at her with what she figured was the same amount of confusion and relief that was written on her own face. “It worked,” he said, his voice raspy. “You’re okay?”

Scully wrapped one arm around her middle while using the other to carefully move the chair closer to his bed. “It still hurts, but yes, I am. As are you. I don’t want to pressure you, or put too much on you,” she said, worrying that by coming into his room and waking him up she’d done exactly that. “Mulder suggested you had something to do with all of this. Is that true?”

His eyes raked over her, taking in the anxiety etched into her features. He spotted a patch of gauze protruding from her shirt and nodded, swallowing slowly. “There was no choice. I knew that I had to do it. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I’m glad it did.”

“Can we back up for a second? You…” she paused, pondering the best way to approach the subject. There was no guidebook for this kind of conversation.

“You’re trying to find a delicate way to tell me I died, aren’t you?” he asked. He shrugged and pushed the blankets back, propping himself further up on the pillows. “I’m sorry.”

She laughed at the absurdity of his apology, gripping the arms of the chair as she spoke. “What on earth do you have to be sorry for? I may not fully comprehend what it is that’s happening here, but you have to know I’m grateful for whatever it is you did.”

He could feel her eyes practically burning into him, but he bowed his head, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. “I worried you, though. I shouldn’t have done that.”

A tear slid down her cheek as she watched him trying to process everything that happened. She opened her mouth, hoping she had the right words to say, because even if she hated having the responsibility, there was something she needed to tell him about what happened, if their conversation were to continue. “I don’t know how much you remember about earlier today. But when we got to your house...William, we were too late. I’m so sorry, but--”

“I saw it,” he replied, forcing his words out though his throat felt like sandpaper. 

“You saw it?” Scully asked, frowning in confusion. “How did you see it? I know it’s late, and if you want to wait until tomorrow you can, but could you explain it to me?”

There was a vulnerability to her words, laced with a certain fear of whatever his answer might be. He leveled his gaze to meet her and might have collapsed at the flood of emotion he felt coming from her, had it not been for the fact he was already lying in bed. In her house, he thought. This was the woman who had given birth to him, the one he’d felt inexplicably tied to for his entire life, even though he still struggled with what that meant. “On the way to the hospital,” he said, biting at his thumbnail. “Before I...passed out, I guess? You and Mulder both tell me I died, and I believe you. But for me it felt different.”

She tilted her head back, resting it against the back of her chair. The ceiling was bare, that stupid and outdated popcorn style that she and Mulder had never bothered to update, but just for a moment she allowed herself to imagine that things were different. If she let her eyes shift out of focus, she could pretend there were glow in the dark stars affixed to the ceiling, along with posters of various movies and comics taped to the walls, and she could allow herself to believe that this was really his room and that it had been that way all along. “What did it feel like for you?”

William shuttered his eyes and rolled his head from one side to the other, not fighting the memory but not exactly welcoming it with open arms. “Have you ever been in the ocean?” he asked, not looking up at her or waiting for a response before he continued. “We went on vacation once when I was a kid, some play at pretending we were a normal family. They were on the beach, but I wasn’t ready to get out of the water. The rip current started pulling me out, and the waves kept pulling me under. I could see things above the surface, could hear things even though it was all a little muffled, but there was the weight of the water all around me, pushing against me. It was sort of like that.”

They sat in silence for a few moments while she absorbed his words, reeling from everything that had happened in less than twenty four hours. “I’m sorry, William. I wish we could’ve gotten there sooner. I wish, for you, that things had been different.”

He was quiet, focusing intently on his hands, picking at a scab he didn’t entirely remember getting. “I don’t think you failed me, you know.”

She could practically hear her heart hammering in her ears. “How?” she asked, feeling a subtle tremble in her lip when all other words left her.

“Like I said, sometimes I see things,” William replied with a shrug. He honed his attention at a spot on the wall, tilting his head to the side as if he were studying it intently. “For instance, Mulder is sitting downstairs right now. He’s on the couch, holding onto a beer, but he’s not drinking it. He hasn’t even opened it. He keeps...he keeps turning his head towards the stairs, then the door, like he’s waiting for something. There’s another man with him, but I don’t know his name. Bald, glasses...they both look concerned. I think--” he stopped, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. “I think it’s because of me.”

It was impossible, that much she knew, but so much that had happened recently didn’t seem likely. She watched as he blinked a few times, as if he were snapping himself back to where he was. Though she couldn’t quite make out the words, she could just barely hear the sound of voices trailing up the stairs, one of them sounding something like Skinner’s. They were still on shaky ground as far as she knew, but Mulder trusted him for this, so she figured that had to count for something. 

“I can do it again if you don’t believe me,” William said, his voice doubtful after several minutes of her not saying anything. 

“No, no,” she said, smoothing out a wrinkle in the comforter. She shook her head and smiled sadly. “I don’t understand how you were able to see all of that, but I believe you did. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

He stared at her quizzically, his mind spinning as he tried to articulate the feeling coursing through him. 

“What is it, William? Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Scully asked, leaning over and fighting the urge to pepper him with a thousand other questions that danced on the tip of her tongue. There was still so much she had to learn about his life and everything he’d gone through, but she knew it wouldn’t all be solved at once.

“I’m fine,” he insisted with a shrug, cocking one side of his mouth into a smile. “It’s just that you’re the first person who found out about what it is I can do who didn’t either call me a freak or insist I keep doing it to try and test me.”

If she didn’t think he’d shrink back at least a little, she’d have climbed into the bed and hugged him so tightly in a feverish attempt to ward off the fear she knew he was feeling, but the last thing she wanted was to rush him too soon before he was ready. If ever, she thought, staring at the young man laying in the bed. The last time they’d sat like this, he was tiny enough for her to be able to rest him against her hip, but now if he were to stand up, he’d be taller than she was. “What you can do might be considered unexplainable, William, but you’re not a freak. Have you always been able to do that?” she asked, realizing too late that she’d spoken the question out loud.

“It’s okay,” he insisted, assuaging the fear she’d felt at asking him such a personal question. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. As far back as I can remember, I guess. I’d find things people lost--the neighbor’s cat, the family car keys. One time--”

“You found a wallet,” Scully said, knitting her brows together as details from a story she’d only casually grazed a few days before filtered through her thoughts. “I...found your blog,” she explained, uttering the words most teenagers might have found terrifying. This was different however, and she knew they were both aware of it. “I confess I was initially under the impression that a large portion of it was fake. That they were stories concocted by someone with an impressive imagination, but I never dreamed it could’ve been true. That those entries were made by you.”

“Some entries might be. The site isn’t entirely mine, I mean,” he said, only now growing afraid at what she might have read. “Mine were real though. The visions, the dreams, the experiments. All of it. My whole life, I’ve been treated like some kind of lab rat. Like I’m some sort of weirdo emo freak, just because I can do things that no one else can.”

Her heart ached for him, burned at the realization of how isolated he must have felt, with nothing and no one there to explain what was happening to him or provide answers to questions he might have had. “I’ve seen a lot of things over the years. So has Mulder. It might surprise you, the things we’d understand.”

“He’s my father,” William said, not bothering to phrase it as a question because he already knew it was true. “I didn’t see him as much as you, but he was there sometimes. Mostly in shadow, but more recently in the light. I’m glad you had him.”

William had no way of knowing the things they’d endured or the personal battles Mulder had faced in recent years, but she knew his relief for her was sincere. “I’m glad, too.”

Scully crossed her arms and drew in a deep breath through her nose. While she was trying her best to keep together, everything they’d experienced left her feeling weary, weighted down with the fact that somehow William had been able to heal her. “What you did today, helping me,” she said, focusing her attention solely on him. He was tired, as evidenced by the way he was struggling to keep his eyes open, but given how the last time she saw him, she hadn’t expected to ever see them again, she was hesitant to look away. “It took a lot out of you, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and rubbing at the spot on his temple where a bullet had nearly ended his life. If he closed his eyes and concentrated enough, he could almost picture himself lying on the floor, could almost feel the blood seeping into the fake wood below him, could almost hear the sound of her crying out in much the same way he had upon finding her in a similar position hours later. Like she’d said, it all seemed so impossible, and yet it still remained real. “But what you need to understand, is that I wanted to do it. I needed to do it. I sort of figured, I don’t know, if roles were reversed, you’d have done the same thing.”

“Thank you,” she replied, the phrase sounding dull and absurd before it even left her mouth, but what else could she possibly say to the son who against practically every odd had saved her life without even thinking twice? “I don’t want you to risk yourself again, not when you’ve already lost so much.”

“You’re talking about my parents,” he replied, not missing the quick look of pain that flashed across her face before to could put her guard back up. “What...what’s gonna happen to them?”

“Arrangements are being made. They’ll be cared for, and before all of this is through, we’ll catch the monster that started all of this. It’s what Mulder and I do best,” Scully said, meaning every word. She didn’t know how, but once she and Mulder had a chance to speak privately, she knew she’d hear all about his ideas on the subject. Burying the people who’d raised her son wasn’t a job she relished, but it was the least she could do.

“They were in on it, you know,” William said, looking at the thin patch of moonlight that filtered in through the curtains rather than at her. “They loved me, or at least they tried to. But in a lot of ways, I think I was a burden to them. What I can do scared them. They might have wanted to be good parents, and it’s not like I had a terrible life most of the time, yeah?” he said, surprising himself at how choked up he was starting to get, though whether it was because of them or the memory of labs and exam tables and machines that poked and prodded him, he wasn’t entirely sure. 

Scully reached out, grasping his shoulder, desperate to anchor him to the present in whatever way she could. “It’s okay to miss them. Sometimes,” she said, shaking her head as another tear slid down her cheek. “Sometimes, we do unthinkable things because we believe it will help the people who matter most to us.”

“Right,” William said, nodding his head in agreement. The silence in the room was filled with her regret. He knew there was more under the surface of what she was saying, and that she was skimming the surface, hesitant to delve any deeper for fear of how he might react. In short, as she gave his shoulder another squeeze, he knew she was protecting him as she always had. This woman who he’d previously only known through dreams and quick glances at her life was just as much a mystery to him as he was sure he was to her. It all seemed so surreal, so much so that he was afraid that if he fell back asleep, when he woke up again it’d all disappear in a puff of smoke. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked, afraid of her answer.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied, her voice wavering slightly as she took in the way he looked, burrowed into the covers. How many nights had she spent when he was an infant, lying awake and staring into his bassinet, marveling at the miracle she and Mulder had been given? Their son was back in their lives, against all odds, and she was going to do everything she could to protect him as best she could, but she also knew she had to be strong herself if that was going to happen. “It’s been a long day,” she said, laughing softly at her own understated joke as she carefully stood up, fearful of agitating any injuries that remained. “I’m going to get some rest. Yell for us if you need anything.”

William nodded, shifting under the covers, watching intently as she headed slowly towards the door. “Hey,” he said, calling out to her and waiting until she turned to face him to continue. The question had plagued him ever since he’d managed to unzip himself from the body bag, had dogged him from the moment he realized he’d done the unthinkable, and though he knew not all the answers could be found in one night, he wanted some form of reassurance. If there was one thing he hated, even growing up, it was being left in the dark. He thought back to closed doors and sterile rooms, and empty promises from people who swore it was for his own good. He thought of the people lying in a morgue somewhere who like she’d said tried to help, and he thought of her and the way her eyes had always seemed like a source of comfort, even in dreams. “What’s going to happen now? I know you said there’s arrangements being made, so that’s cool, I guess. But I mean...about me. Or you. All of us. Are we safe here?”

Scully grasped the doorjamb, clinging to it in an effort to remain upright and praying the next word out of her mouth wouldn’t be a lie. “Yes,” she replied, smiling sadly at him. She couldn’t sugarcoat the truth because she knew he’d see through it, but at his age, she didn’t want him thinking he had to face any of it alone. “We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe, William. I can’t guarantee much else, but that much I know to be true,” she said, and she could practically feel the relief radiating from him, even clear across the room. “I’ll see you in the morning. Get some sleep, okay?”

“Yeah,” William replied, not looking away from the doorway until he couldn’t see her any longer. Try as he might, he couldn’t suppress the yawn from escaping him. The house grew quiet and still, and his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. There was still work to do, still problems that needed to be solved, but as he began to drift off to sleep, the one thing he knew for certain was that despite any dangers that remained, he was safe. For now, that was enough.


End file.
